Part I – Izzat Baig (Mahiwal)
I
Each moment is the first moment.
II
I have seen this day many times before.
At night the moon’s face on my face.
III
Made smooth by the hands of day,
a cheap vase for tourists to buy.
What have I made with my hands?
IV
It was day. It was night.
I thought that the passage of time
was what life was about.
The moment before I met you.
V
It was day. It was night.
The face of the moon in a black blue sky.
Some things would catch my eyes.
Though I was mostly counting time.
The moment before I met you.
VI
Coiled clay – the rope of the heart.
Every moment is the first moment,
this is the secret of the cup we share.
We are made in fire; we are the hand
and the turning of the wheel.
It is day, and then it is night.
VII
The rules which we try to make against the river
of the heart. Rules and castes. Notions of
respectability, unlived lives.
Shame on their faces for the things
They would love to make with their own hands.
They take you from me, but the clay has been fired.
There is no legislation against the river of the heart.
VIII
It is nothing to choose what others see
as poverty to be near you.
I let go of the old life.
There is no poverty except
for selling the heart cheaply
for trinkets, money, caste and respectability.
I will wait in moonlight on the far side of the river.
I will pray in moonlight as she guides your crossing.
IX
Eat my flesh – I am all for you; blood for blood.
Turn the world with your fingers my love.
The space inside is only ever filled by love.
Life moves the river.
We sleep side by side.
My fingers move over the line
of your arm, caress your waist.
I watch your face as you sleep
in moonlight. Coiled rope, clay heart;
painted with the only colours we have.
X
The world hates lovers. It fears beauty.
It cuts its own face to prove its point.
Ingests poison and then waits for us to die.
It places a porous jug in your hands
so that the river may pull you down.
It tries all of its tricks
to unname, to unmake us.
There is no one richer than we are.
We have painted our love brushstroke
by brushstroke on the clay of our flesh.
Part II – Sohni
I
The space inside is only ever filled by love.
II
The inside is unspoken
– outside we paint our lives in colour.
III
There is a river flowing between us.
Between sleep and wakefulness.
Between one meeting with love and the next.
IV
The hands of day turn each moment over,
poetry speaking through touch.
Moments painted brushstroke by brushstroke
with the only colours we have.
V
The potter throws the clay to the wheel
– a moment, a movement. The whole of
the artist’s being defined in a single action.
Each moment is the first moment.
There is only trust and touch to go by.
VI
It is not art that makes art.
In is not the desire to write
which puts ink on paper.
It is not the value of an antique vase
which gives it value.
It is life moving the river.
VII
At night we meet despite
what has been chosen for us by others.
At night we make the dreams
of the day into reality with our bodies.
Painting our love brushstroke
by brushstroke on the clay of our flesh.
There is no one richer than we are.
VIII
The vase is filled, kept buoyant, by love,
its inner space allowing the body to exist.
Fingers and hands shape the outside.
Giving our lives in this instant to throw this pot.
Bigger on the inside: cups of love,
a vase of dreams, containers of oil and wine,
a bowl of salt – cupped hands of treasure.
IX
You feed me with fish caught from the river.
Every moment apart is a river between us.
On the nights when we are poor,
you feed me with the flesh of yourself.
Your bandage makes me cry. Never cut
the meat of yourself for love.
I want you whole.
Painting our story on this vase,
its being, its beauty, its form is our flesh.
X
The clay turning on the wheel, placed
in fire and in time. Fingers having learned
to shape the life moving through us.
The inside of the vessel is alive
with the shadow of our souls.
Others make bread, build houses, hammer in nails,
fix car engines, write poetry and hold babies.
Some lie with the words in their mouths and faces,
their hands always give them away. Love and poetry
course through our fingers making shapes of our clay.